In Praise of Aunt Em

And All Women Who Pick up the Slack.

I have a weird Mother’s Day ritual: I begin the day reading the opening sentence from The Wizard of Oz:

“Dorothy lived in the midst of the great Kansas Prairies, with Uncle Henry, who was a farmer, and Aunt Em, who was the farmer’s wife.”

I pause, on purpose, like a meditation. I slip out of my shoes and into Dorothy’s. Not her dazzling ruby slippers. The…